Alkegen's laser focus remains high

Oct 16, 2023

See Correction/Clarification at end of article

Three massive buildings along the I-290, 650 local and 7,500 worldwide employees, 75 sites around the world and 22 patents in one year alone – the numbers tell why Alkegen is a prominent manufacturer in Buffalo.

The manufacturer of high-temperature insulation began in 1891 as Carborundum Co. in Niagara Falls. It most recently was known as Unifrax and then rebranded as Alkegen in 2022.

"Tonawanda has been the epicenter for a very long time. Still is. I'm sure it will be for a very long time," said John Dandolph, the 10-year president and CEO, adding that Tonawanda has two roles.

First as the campus where Alkegen's largest group of professionals work. More than 90% of innovation and research and development are done in the Tonawanda facilities.

Second, there are about 400 people in the three manufacturing facilities, making it the company's most diverse campus. Products include insulating products for heavy industry such as petrochemicals and steel, fire protection materials for electric vehicles and filtration and catalysis materials.

Alkegen's new offices in Irving, Texas, are the corporate headquarters and center of the company's filtration and battery businesses. Tonawanda will continue to oversee the company's thermal insulation and emission control businesses, according to a company announcement last year.

The purchase of Lydall Inc. of Manchester, Connecticut, in October 2021 catapulted Alkegen from a $500 million company to a $2 billion one and prompted the name change from Unifrax.

The new name better reflects what the company is now: a global leader in arenas such as battery technologies, electric vehicles, filtration media and specialty insulation materials, Dandolph said. For example, an Alkegen product probably protects the driver from the battery pack, he said.

Dandolph credits employees who are passionate about the company's culture for creating products and processes that surpass a customer's expectations.

"And the other part of the culture," he said, "as we've gotten bigger and bigger, we still act like that small Niagara Falls company where we started. When you can invent things like we do and it's fun to do, you get great people, and you grow."

Carborundum's invention of ceramic fiber, which became one of the best insulators in the world, was based on helping people reduce the amount of energy used. Over the years, that became more about helping people reduce the impact they have on the environment.

"Less energy, you get less greenhouse gas, less carbon emissions," he said. "About 10 years ago, we sat back and said, 'How do we grow into this human health environmental sustainability company?' Either through acquisitions or through inventions, we've developed into a multibillion-dollar enterprise."

Alkegen took several steps forward to become a global leader in advanced materials focused on lowering energy usage and reducing emissions for high-growth industries such as lithium-ion batteries and advanced filtration. Those steps included launching the Alkegen brand following the merger of Unifrax and Lydall and acquiring controlling ownership interest in Luyang Energy-Saving Materials Co. Ltd. of Shandong, China.

Key objectives achieved last year included improving safety performance, achieving 50% diversity hiring milestone, nearly doubling worldwide employee count and besting industry benchmarks for employee engagement scores, according to a company spokesman.

"With growing the company to the size we are comes a responsibility to make an impact on the communities around and that the most important place we're focused on is right here," Dandolph said. "I mean, Buffalo has been home of the company forever."

600 Riverwalk Pkwy., Tonawanda • alkegen.com

President and CEO: John Dandolph

Key executives

Manufactured product: We make high-performance specialty materials designed to positively impact the environment by saving energy, reducing pollution, and improving fire safety for people, buildings, and equipment.

Founded: The earliest iteration of the company was founded in 1891 as The Carborundum Company.

Employees, local: 650

Employees, total including local: 7500

Annual revenue: no data

Plans for 2023 and beyond: 2023 is a big year for a number of our platform technologies this year, including SiFAB, our LiB fire protection suite of products and FlexCat.

Company innovation: We are incredibly proud to have exceeded our diversity hiring and promotion targets last year, achieving greater than 50% diversity in our hires and more than 40% for promotions. We’re also very proud to have recently published our first ever Alkegen sustainability report.

Key event in company history: In late 2021, Unifrax successfully acquired Lydall Inc. This merger nearly doubled the size and reach of the company, which was rebranded as "Alkegen" in early 2022.

An interesting fact: Alkegen has multiple products on the Mars. We supplied HEPA-grade filtration media for the MOXIE module on the Perseverance, the rover NASA recently landed on Mars, which is being used to produce oxygen on Mars.

An earlier version of this story contained incorrect employment numbers for Alkegen's global workforce.